Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday accused the Congress-led Punjab Government of committing sacrilege against Sikhs’ tenth master Guru Gobind Singh by swapping his face with the French statesman Napoleon Bonaparte in a computer-generated portrait, recently published in the newspapers, in Government advertisements.
Irked, the Akali Dal has demanded strict action against the ‘erring’ officials and advertising agency as well.
The party has also asked the Punjab Government to immediately apologise from the Sikh community for the ‘unfortunate’ incident and remove the controversial painting from the media as well as public places.
“The painting in question, which is being shown as of Guru Sahib in the advertisement released about the commemoration of the 350th birthday of the tenth guru, is actually that of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte,” pointed SAD spokesman and senior vice-president Daljit Singh Cheema.
Cheema said that the face of the Sikh Guru was swapped with the French ruler in the computer generated copy. “The origin of the tempered painting dated back to 1800 and came into existence almost after a century of Guru Sahib’s period...I wonder why the Punjab Government committed this grave sin of passing off the tempered painting of Napoleon as the Guru Sahib’s when there are plenty of the tenth gurus’ paintings available,” Cheema said.
Akali leader said that the painting of a horse-mounted Napoleon is world famous and has been displayed at various museums across the world and published in books as well.
“Guru Sahib’s painting published by the Punjab government shared many unmistakable resemblances with the Napoleon Bonaparte’s painting. It has the same horse with resemblance of face, body, hair on neck, tail, stirrup and other things as shown in the Napoleon painting. Even the clothes Guru Sahib was shown wearing in the painting were the same the Napoleon had in the original painting,” he added.Cheema added that on the pious occasion of Guru Sahib’s parkash purb, the occurrence of this unfortunate incident has hurt the feelings of the Sikhs across the world.